Confirmed: Women in Tech Can't Win

*We’ve all heard stories about how hostile the world of tech can be for women, and Fast Company recently published yet another. (TL;DR: negative stereotypes about women in tech make it that much harder on women who already face stigma and stereotype within the industry.)

Inspired by that story, one female tech start-up cofounder—who asked to remain anonymous to avoid inviting retaliation—spoke with Glamour about the difficulties she’s experienced firsthand in an industry that is infamously unkind to women.*

I think the reason it's so hard to talk about how hard it is to be a woman in tech is that Silicon Valley is positioned as a meritocracy. If you sincerely believe that only "the best of the best" make it, then you don’t have a problem. You know that Maya Angelou quote "When someone tells you who they are, believe them"? It’s like that, but instead it’s, "If someone tells you who you are, believe them." It’s like that Mike Moritz story in which he said that if women were good enough, they would be working at Sequoia. But there are no women there, ergo no women are good enough.

The idea of meritocracy is the most dangerous fallacy that has been sold to us. If it were true, tech would look like a bell curve of the demographics of America—and the average American is not a twentysomething white male. If you are telling men that they are not funding the best companies, you’re telling them that they are not being the best venture capitalists. And unfortunately, they don’t want to hear this. Because for more women to succeed, fewer men will.

When you start out, you think, There’s no way I’m going to get treated like this. Then it starts happening. You’re not getting the venture funding you need and you look for every reason for it’s not to be true, that this isn’t just because you are a woman in tech. You think, Maybe our metrics aren’t good enough. Maybe we’re not far enough along. But then you realize it’s not that at all. It’s because of your sex. And you think, Why don’t they just look at the numbers? It’s just economics. In what world would they hear a pitch that’s better than this? Venture capitalists really believe they are evaluating you and your business on merit. But in some sense, this can’t be true.

In the tech start-up world, everyone knows everyone. Everyone talks to everyone else. Everyone knows what other raises are. And the reason I’m pissed is that I know what male peers are raising—and I know women who are better than that.

No one will ever talk about this, but very few female-run companies go straight from seed to Series A (the first significant round of venture funding raised by a start-up). No one will talk about it. We barely talk to each other about it. But you find out. You hear from women founders, "Oh, we just couldn’t get to an A so we took a bridge," "Oh we’re just taking another bridge." (A bridge round is a type of financing done by insider or existing investors that is flat if you are lucky.)

But if men can go from seed to an $8 million Series A in a year and don’t have to scrape by, it’s a problem. Women have to hit more milestones, which requires more capital at worse valuations than men. So men launch, do “fine” and don’t have to prove as much to get to a big funding commitment. Women get Series A when venture capitalists know they—and their company—are unquestionably successful. But this is venture capital—you don’t know if someone is unquestionably successful, ever. But you can’t say that to them because you may need them. There are just not that many options.

There is no way to really win against systemic issues, no matter how perfect, how educated, or how good you are. And let’s face it: I’m all those things. I am from tech. I am white. I am highly educated. I am not an exception. If the "perfect" candidate isn’t perfect, what does that mean? It’s like Hillary—she’s the second most qualified person to run since Thomas Jefferson. But people still aren’t sure if she is really qualified. And Jefferson is on friggin’ Mount Rushmore.

You go through your 20s being so confident that it’s getting better. But it’s getting worse. I once had a VC guy give me an entire lecture on how asset classes work. And I thought, Buddy, I have an economics degree from one of the best universities on the planet. You have an English degree. And nothing against English degrees, but someone with an economics degree is probably more qualified to understand asset classes. I don’t know how long I can last, and I’m only going on a decade in this world.

I would tell young women looking to get into tech that it’s going to be a thousand times harder than you expect it to be, and it’s not because you don’t work hard or are stupid. But you have to do twice as much as your male compatriots. You have to do twice as well to go half as far. And if you can live with that indignity and accept it, you’ve got a shot. If not, pick another industry. Any other industry is friendlier to women than tech. Finance, real estate—you name it. I can’t think of any industry less friendly to women.